replied Malin.     

       “Have you forgotten Favras?”      

       The words made an impression on the councillor.     

       “Since when?” asked Grevin, after a pause.     

       “Since the Consulate for life.”      

       “I hope there’s no proof of it?”      

       “Not that!” said Malin, clicking his thumb-nail against his teeth.     

       In few words the Councillor of State gave a clear and succinct account of the critical position in which Bonaparte was about to hold England, by threatening her with invasion from the camp at Boulogne; he explained to Grevin the bearings of that project, which was unobserved by France and Europe but suspected by Pitt; also the critical position in which England was about to put Bonaparte. A powerful coalition, Prussia, Austria, and       Russia, paid by English gold, was pledged to furnish seven hundred thousand men under arms. At the same time a formidable conspiracy was throwing a network over the whole of France, including among its members montagnards, chouans, royalists, and their princes.     

       “Louis XVIII. held that as long as there were three Consuls anarchy was certain, and that he could at some opportune moment take his revenge for the 13th Vendemiaire and the 18th Fructidor,” said Malin, “but the Consulate for life has unmasked Bonaparte’s intentions—he will soon be emperor. The late sub-lieutenant means to create a dynasty! This time his life is in actual danger; and the plot is far better laid than that of the Rue Saint-Nicaise. Pichegru, Georges, Moreau, the Duc d’Enghien, Polignac and Riviere, the two friends of the Comte d’Artois are in it.”      

       “What an amalgamation!” cried Grevin.     

       “France is being silently invaded; no stone is left unturned; the thing will be carried with a rush. A hundred picked men, commanded by Georges, are to attack the Consular guard and the Consul hand to hand.”      

       “Well 

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